Planet Fall
by gatejumper-13
Summary: James Latchkey has sacrificed himself to take out the an enemy ship with a voidstar warhead. upon detonation James is not killed though, he is transported across the dimensional gate ways that the Blacksun ships use for travel and is dumped into the shallow waters of an unknown planet. James's death does not come here though as he rises to the challenge of a new planet, a new home.
1. Chapter 1

Rise Against

Book one: Planet Fall

Chapter 1: Send me out, with a bang

The BlackSun was hard pressed to push back the great enemy that lay before them, marching onwards through bullets and bombs and blades. Commandos in strata entry armor descended constantly and endlessly from the sky, disgorged by the massive ships that orbited nearby. Blood and oil ran thick as man meet machine head on, both sides locked in furious combat for the planet that was a keystone in the BlackSun's defensive lines.

Commandos forged in the flames of war stood boldly against their foes, plasma washing them in near fatal heats as they moved against the enemy's outer lines. They strode forwards through a valley thigh deep with organic and mechanical bodies alike, churning the earth below into a thin and water mud that came away black and crimson. Their weapons held at the ready, pouring fire and lead and energy forwards into the enemy, crushing them through sheer weight of fire power.

The mechanical warriors of the shroud would not just lie down and die though. They lobbed massive artillery shells into the advancing commandos as their heavy weapons teams attempted to thin them out. Zero squads and Cullers stood at the ready behind metal barricades and within trenches, an array of short range arms present and waiting for the close combat that would ensue after their gun teams were overrun. Screaming burst of binary code filled the air like the wail of primeval creatures baying for the hunt.

The first commando entered the trench and was set upon by dozens of Cullers, his armor quickly cracking under the assault of multiple blades and plasma burst rifles. The Cullers eager for more blood rushed from the trenches, only to be greeted by the fire of BlackSun's Linear fission rifle teams and their numbers were drastically thinned as metal pieces filled the air like shrapnel as radiation fogged the circuits of the survivors. The shroud made a desperate push, bringing their ship, a harvester, down into orbit so that its heavy weapons might stem the tide of Human and commando soldiers with their Silvyan magi squads who resurrected the dead long enough for them to complete their final goal.

The ship broke the light that was the twilight of battle, its heavy weapons razing the already broken fields. It disgorged fresh Mako shock troopers even as it annihilated the commandos. The commandos sent up commands to their ships in orbit, the harvester had been lured into the trap. More commandos descended from the sky, star bright as they fell. One star stood out amongst them, for it was larger and brighter than the rest, throwing out burst of orange energy as it tempted fate by accelerating faster than their terminal velocity. They impacted the outer hull and opened a wide gash in it as they passed through the outer armor; they stood slowly with their weapon drawn, ready to take the ship single handedly if necessary. The figure marched down the hall at a relaxed pace, returning causal fire to the machines that tried to oppose him until he turned the corridor and became a shadow. The machines all across the ship never knew what struck them, only that is was strong and fast, a flicker of movement that was followed by swift death.

The figure entered the center of the ship, or the closest he could get at that time. Reaching upwards he tapped the armors internal mic's activation key and spoke into it with a voice that lacked heavily in emotion or interest. "I have reached the center of the ship, the void star warhead will be deployed shortly." He then flicked the key again and let out a sigh, even he hated that voice, but he could not let his appearance slip to high command. A voice touched the back of his mind. 'Two hostiles, approaching from the left. Both are terminators. Be careful James.' James turned as he readied the warhead, pulling his side arm as he attached the sizable explosive device to one of the ships bulkheads.

Something crashed into James's side, throwing him against the bulkhead. Looking up he found the massive figure of a Terminator lumber towards him, its massive foot falls making almost no noise on the Etrituim deck. James pointed his sidearm and depressed the trigger rapidly only to have the bullets glance of its armor. The massive machine raised its arm and hundreds of glittering shards of energy washed over James, blistering the thin painted lines on his armor and setting the internal alarms off. James rolled to the left leaving his destroyed sidearm behind. The roll ended and James found himself face to face with the second terminator; its fist collided with his chest armor and James went sprawling on the floor. Pushing himself up he scrambled out of the way as one of their heavy descended where his head once was.

James took two massive steps back and drew a Hell Breaker anti-armor rifle. The first shot dented the thick armor of the first terminator reflecting off of the immense battle plate. James depressed the trigger a second time, lodging one of the steel core tungsten rounds in the weaker neck armor. The terminator staggered back and reached up to grasp its neck, binary code streamed from its audio projects in a string. James depressed the trigger in rapid succession, riddling the terminator with holes. The rifle clicked empty and James moved to insert a fresh magazine as he tracked the second terminator. It was upon him in a single gigantic bound that shook the floor under its impact as James was sent down the hall where he slid to a stop.

James grit his teeth at the antics of the machine as it charged him, he griped the sword sheathed on his back. The blade slid out in a fluid motion making no noise except the slightest swish as James swung it round experimentally. Then with the machine he lunged, the sword glancing off its armor as the two passed. James ducked the fist of the machine as its hand erupted in energy, its aim was off but the power field still singed his armor. James leaped upwards kicking off against the terminators armored chest, twisting his body about he landed on its back and drove his sword downward into the gap in between the neck armor and its head.

The terminator wailed in binary as the blade pierced its organic interior, flesh parting as cold bluesteel forced its way smoothly through tightly bound muscles. Blood and oil ran out from underneath the lower joints, pooling on the ground between the terminators thick legs. The terminator slammed its back into the wall and stumbled forwards as James pulled himself from the breached wall. The terminator at the far end of the wall turned back to James and readied to once again charge him when the screeching drone or metal tearing, the area around the terminator came apart as another ship plowed through the harvester. The lettering on the ship flashed by as a white light plunged everything else into darkness.

The name read 'BSNS Imminent Fury' and James saluted the ships sacrifice as the bomb behind him detonated. The blank whiteness of the trans-dimension overtook his sight as he was absorbed by a glowing orb that sped away from the epicenter of the bomb when it detonated. The wash of weightlessness overtook him as the energy was sucked from his very being, long orange tendrils of it flowing from his body. It took only seconds for the crossing between the two worlds, but in those seconds enough life energy was absorbed from James to send him into a cold and dreamless sleep. And the last thing that graced his vision was the underside of a wave, washing over the surface of a blue-green body of water as he sank into the shallow water.

Then there was nothing, nothing but the comforting blackness of sleep.

[So yes, it is I gatejumper once again trying my hand at a twokinds fanfiction. But not to worry this time I am committing to the story and promise that I will do my best to actually include romance, it just took some time for me to work out the kinks on paper. And also as I am requesting on my Fictionpress account, call me Knighte or Mr. Knighte as I have adopted the pen name of Silvon Knighte. And to the reader of this story, I think you for taking time out of your day to read my work. To you – Knighte~]


	2. Chapter 2

Rise Against

Book one: Planet Fall

Chapter 2: Falling

James mind was filled with the feeling of gravity crushing him into a weightless descent as the darkness filtered through his mind, touching and taking the thoughts this one would not need, secrets he no longer had to keep. In seconds centuries of history left his mind in a mighty torrent as an otherworldly force ripped his mind apart. Barriers that had stood against the dark magic of his universe were swept aside even as James erected more, seeking to block and repel the entity even as it tried to move farther in. James tired of the games it played with his mind and turned the tables with on massive thrust of knowledge towards the entity, overwhelming it as he counteracted most of its earlier effects, but barriers that once held the enemy out suddenly withheld him as well. His memories where locked away in a part of his mind he could not reach as their ghost filtered through his vision.

Mighty fortresses and sprawling plains flashed before his eyes. Empty sky's and stars crowded out by ships too numerous to count. Clear days with gentle breezes and storm torn battle fields muddied with blood and bodies. Aero planes screamed by as war machines on both tread and legs lumbered into battle, spewing lead and energy in such vast amounts that the enemy fell in numbers that went uncounted. Blades flashed, guns discharged, bombs fountained earth and flesh into the air. Bodies piled against the back drop of burning buildings, the air clogged with smoke and debris. More and more passed him, driving him to the edge of breaking form this mental assault. And then his eyes opened, and he was reborn, falling through a world of water to rest on a bed of silt and sand.

He pushed himself up sluggishly as the water slowed him, encumbering his every move within the semi-power armor, type CIX Crusader M2 if the name that came to mind was correct. He moved his right hand and felt something familiar yet strange within his grasp, looking down he found a sword held tight in his fist. He maneuvered it to his back where it connected with its sheathe, resting there outside his grip but comforting none the less.

James set his right foot before his left, a simple motion the signaled the start to the greatest journey he would ever take. With each step he move father away from his old life and closer to the new one, and maybe if he had known of the challenges to come he would have stayed there in the water, but he moved forwards instead leaving behind him a rising ball of disturbed sand and silt. His eyes drank in his environment and he could not help but see the debris of… something, a ship most likely destroyed and brought here just as he was.

The shore greeted James with a yawning smile of flotsam and smaller pieces of this and that. James upon the shore fell to his knees as the green coast before him overwhelmed whatever senses that where left intact within his brain. The green of trees and grass and other plants spread inland a ways before breaking into mighty snow peaked mountains that rose up to bit the sky like the canines of a wolf. His hands shakily removed his helmet and he let it fall to the ground as the breeze untainted brushed against his cheek, next the armor plate fell from his shoulders and arms, gloves sliding off after the discarded plate. Standing his leg armor fell with the sand, leaving him in the black gel under armor helped absorb moisture and heat. James move farther along the beach until he found the equipment locker of one 'Samuel S. Marss' and with a one mighty tug the door came off the hedges with the lock snapping away as well. Within the locker James found two changes of standard off duty dress uniforms, both identical but different in their urban black and orange patterns. James took the first set and quickly dawned it over his pale skin that was covered by a myriad of old scars, the uniform was a little short on him but all in all he found it suitable for his cause.

With his newly acquired outfit applied James dug deeper into the locker, pulling a small stash of old rations from the back. James grimaced, knowing that while the rations kept good for a long time the flavor went out of them quickly. He stuffed the packs into the uniforms breast pocket and dug deeper through the random object in the locker eventually coming across something that James found familiar. He picked it up and found an old Delimar bayonet from before they were built into the weapons of the BlackSun. Taking both it and its sheathe James turned around and looked up the beach to where the inland greenery lay. The longing to go there filled James heart, pulling him towards it, but James resisted and continued to move down the beach until he stumbled upon something perplexing.

A crate that had become dislodge in the fall lay half ashore with the front ramp down, spilling a four wheeled vehicle of some kind onto the sands. James walked towards it moving carefully across the wet sands, his armored boots sinking slightly into the semi-solid ooze. Reaching the vehicle he was surprised to find a Union LRV-10A rolled on its side, cargo spilled across the beach suggesting it had been loaded up for a mission. James picked through the cargo carefully as most of it was live munitions with high explosive capabilities, nothing of use to him so he forsook that effort and turned to the Union. The vehicle was still in good condition as far as anything went; the engine and wheels were still attached so he could not complain. One good shove and the vehicle was four on the floor, ready to roll as if it was newly minted.

James with only half and idea on what next stopped to actually take stock of his situation, his eyes trying to find anything along the horizon to help him in his task. He was alone, of that he was sure. Food wasn't an issue and a quick glance at the passenger compartment told him a least one two liter canteen was left, enough for his advanced body to get by for a week on. His mind working in its fogged state it finally reached the key point in the puzzle, where was he going? The inland looked enticing, but that was not a grantee that anything fruitful to his cause, whatever that was, would be hidden away within that distant interior beyond the mountains. He mentally shrugged and clambered into the LRV priming the ignition switch. The engine came to life with a roar but settled into a healthy growl as he maneuvered down the beach a good way until he was back to where he started.

He climbed from the LRV and quickly piled his discarded armor in one of the now vacant storage compartments before once again sitting himself in the driver's seat. James turned the wheel hard as his foot came down on the accelerator, the LRV spinning its tires out on the wet sand before it found traction and shot off, bounding for the interior track. The landscape was a terran dream that passed him in a blur of green and gold, punctuated by the deep blues of the backdrop behind him. The ghost of a smile graced his lips as the freedom of the situation fell upon him. No high command to order him on suicide missions. No half backed enemy soldiers 'holding the line'. And best off all, his emotions where free to play themselves out for the first time in his life. His smile started to reveal his teeth, a grin, something that if he had done so blatantly not but a few hours ago he would have been spaced for.

The LRV pushed to its upper limits roared through the mostly open country, passing the tree line that had barely been a few feet thick. The mountains in the distance loomed ever closer, dominating his sight until something caught his eye. In the distance a collection of what appeared to be huts lay against the backdrop. He angled the LRV slightly so that he would pass near their vicinity, maybe even giving him some insight on the people who lived here.

The LRV closed in on the small village fast, and the image before James screamed of wrongness, the foul stench of destruction magic hung on the air. James removed his foot from the accelerator and applied it to the breaks, the LRV sliding a good fifteen feet before coming to a complete halt, allowing James to jump out and land in a crouch in the tall grass. James pulled the bayonet from its case and held it like a dagger, the village coming ever closer with each half step he took. His eyes took in the broken building that had once made up the place, soundly build but nothing fancy, all of them broken in some way with not one left intact. James moving forwards stiffened as something crunched beneath his feet. His hand darted down and came back up with a small child's cloth doll. James looked at the emotion of horror on his face shifting to rage, he stood and surveyed the area.

What looked to be paw prints created tracks all over the village, but the depth of their depression suggested that they stood on two legs. James looked at the huts. Silvyans? His mind discarded the hasty conclusion, for they would have already been uplifted by the BlackSun. His eyes found an anomaly among the prints, a single armored boot print, flat soled and simple in design. James looked to one of the less destroyed buildings and entered it, and in all his centuries of service, he had never been prepared for what he found. There was three of them, wolven in nature with a light brown coat of fur covered in black markings. The largest, a male, was pinned beneath the wreckage that had once been the roof, his throat had been slit and judging by the torn flesh it had been done slowly. To the right lay a figure just slightly less in size, the body shape suggested that she was an older female, a slash mark flowed over a stab wound through what would have been her heart, but this must have been after her shredded clothing had been torn away, exposing her for whatever had brutalized her before her death. The last one though is what made James bile rise in his throat. Just to the side of the female was what must have been the owner of the doll, laying in a state that mirrored her mothers, minus the wounds. Whatever had done this was a monster, forcing themselves upon a little girl before killing her outright.

James felt a fire burn within his gut as he stepped back outside, his bayonet sheathed on his thigh. He walked the perimeter of the village until he found a collection of armored prints where they arrived and left the trail of the monsters. His armor was donned rapidly and the LRV came to life once more, the machine sensing a battle was to ensue, growled deeply with pleasure, James foot never left the accelerator as he raced down the trail of the marauders. The trail wasn't well hidden from sight and James followed it with relative ease. There was only one reason they had been this reckless, and the word hung over his mind making him push onwards even faster, he word; survivors. The Union LRV leaped small boulders and streams, flattening anything from grass to small trees as James raced down the trail. His fingers where crossed and his hands were tied. He would try to save whoever was left, or at the very least, send their killers to the plains of despair.

Ashe Songbreeze, the escaped slave and wandering Keidran wolf ran as fast as her paws would allow her. The cries of her human hunters getting closer by the second as each step took her closer to the mountain plains. The trees around her gave out to thick grass, her foot paws became entrapped in something, a human trap she released as she hurtled downwards. She watched with horror as the humans ran to her. A cold fear filled her stomach as a deep roar filled the air. Was there a dragon about? Some war beast conjured by human magi? Ashe shook her head and tried to crawl away from the humans who had suddenly frozen in place. Something was off, but she was too busy trying to free herself from the simple rope trap to see what it was.

The roaring stopped suddenly and the air went cold, as if deprived of the life the breeze once gave it. Something emerged from the forest line, clad in full body armor. The humans raised their hands and cheered as Ashe's stomach dropped, before them all stood a Templar knight, a symbol that was of power to humanity and oppression to keidrans. Ashe looked on to what was to be her eminent doom, her ears listening in on the conversation at hand.

"… yes we are the ones who destroyed the village, your lord ship." The Knight made a displeased gesture as he spoke coldly. "So you murdered the unarmed 'scum' and then had the audacity to take there women's integrity to! Mortals, you are the scum here. Your penitence is death immortal, for I am your reaper." The voice finished in a deep but monotone voice, conveying no emotion as he started to move.

Ashe watched awestruck as the knight drew his weapon and set upon the humans with a blur of speed none of them could match. The sword arched and slashed and hacked and pierced, blood flowing from the other humans in vast amounts. They fell one by one until only three where left. One of them threw a ball of blue energy at the man but it dispersed around him. Ashe could feel the cold and triumphant grin under the steel mask the Templar wore as he raised his arm. A single orange tendril shot forth and wrapped itself around the mage, lifting him into the air before it plunged itself into his gut and tightened around him and cutting him in two. This action prompted the other two to flee as the Templar approached her. He reached out and she cringed as the blade came down.

Ashe opened her eyes after not receiving the pain she expected and found the rope trap cut and one of the Templar knight's hands extended towards her. She reached out slowly and warily, ready for any trap he may spring on her. But as her hand made contact with his she was reassured that he was… different somehow. He held her hand gently as he aided her into a standing position. Releasing her hand he grabbed the sword and sheathed it on his back, his hands reaching up they grasped the helmet firmly. It came off slowly with a quarter turn to the left and a slight hiss. Ashe found herself gazing into one of the strangest yet comforting faces she had ever seen on a human. His face looked both old and young at the same time, the energy he gave off conflicted, speaking of both a soldier and a free man. His hand was out stretched to her as he spoke in a mellow and soothing voice.

"Hello, my name is James, and I must say I am glad I got here before those creatures got you." She took his hand and shook it gingerly as the steely muscles moved beneath his skin. Ashe spoke her piece next. "I am Ashe, former slave of governor Tobboshi crane. The pleasure is mine I am sure." The man's face paled a little at the word Slave but he shook it off quickly as he turned back in the direction he came from. He looked over at Ashe before he started walking off. "Do you need some place to stay the night? Or are you familiar with the area?" Ashe recoiled slightly, this human was not a Templar, that he spoke to her at all was a small miracle. But his voice, the concern in it was almost palpable. Ashe turned her head to the mountains, point in the general direction of east, well away from where this human must be heading, for he was nice but human was human.

"My home lies on the other side of the mountains, it will take some time but I should reach it in some month and a half's time." Ashe spoke with an almost sad tone and knotted the strange look in the human's eyes. His voice was deep and hallow, each word echoed the sadness of his thoughts. "They have brought you that far from your home?" he turned so that his entire body faced her. "I can take you there, I was heading that way when I first saw the village, and then I found the prints that marked the chase. It is your choice but I might be able to help you get there faster." Ashe put on a false face, making herself appear hopeful in his eyes. "Thank you hu- I mean, James. This is more than what I could ask of you." James just shook his head and waved for Ashe to follow. She took a single step forwards and cringed, a spike of pain rushing through her person.

"By _Sara_ that hurts!" Ashe exclaimed, James spun on his heels and rushed over to her. He kneelt and felt around the base of her leg where the paw and leg meet. Ashe flinched as his fingers probed through her fur and made contact with the bruised skin beneath. His face was a grimace as he stood back up. "You're not walking on that." Ashe tried to protest but she was suddenly swept up by the human who now marched for the forest, carefully ducking the branches of trees as he moved farther in. Ashe looked up at him, her face burning under her fur as he held on to her tightly.

"You do not half to carry me, my feet work just fine." Ashe's argument was halfhearted as James Carried her to some wheeled contraption, its dark metal gleaming slightly in the late afternoon sun. A dragonfly settled on Ashe's arm but she hardly noticed it as she looked up at the face of her savior, his feature caught ever so slightly by the sun. Her eyes then spotted something shocking, on his neck a dozen scars where something had once been embedded in his neck shown lightly against James pale skin. Ashe had heard of troubled slaves having collars that would match that description, but a human? Her mind raced, who was this man? A human soldier? A mage? Or even a prisoner? Her mind reeled as he set her down on something soft in the metal… thing. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with questions.

"James… your neck." He froze, the air around him going cold. His eyes darkened and he seemed to age a hundred years before her. "It is a result of saving something you value, the punishment of winning against all odds, and most importantly." He looked to her, the sadness fell from him in torrents. "It was the rebirth of my ideals." He turned back to digging through a storage container of some kind. His hands moved and sorted the items rapidly before coming out with a glass tube loaded into a slightly larger metal cylinder. Then he knelt by where Ashe sat and put the strange object close to her leg.

"This may sting a bit." He told her before pressing a button on the side of it. A small bit of blue gel emerged and clung to her skin and Ashe almost jumped at the burning sensation that suddenly ran through her entire being, something was changing in her, she felt different. Her body locked up but she found the pain had quickly receded. Looking down she found that the wound was no more and only a small patch of thin fur was visible were the rope had torn her flesh. She looked up at James in wonder.

"You are different from the other humans." She said, flashing him a genuine smile. James looked back at her as he replace the vile were he had found it. "In time, you might learn why. But that is talk for another time," he craned his head back to look up at the sky. "I think its time we got a move on." Ashe looked around confused; the wagon she sat in had no horses. "Uh James?" She asked slowly. "Yes Ashe?" was his reply as he sat down in the seat opposite of her. "Where might your horses be?" James looked faintly amused as he settled low into the soft seat.

"Just hold on and stay low." Ashe lowered herself farther in, and was about to ask James another question when something burst into a symphony of growling noises. The wagon pitched forwards and Ashe gipped both sides of her seat as it quickly ran past the place where the humans were killed. She felt no pity as she passed them by, looking instead at the land passing by rapidly in a blur. She looked over at James who gripped a wheel mounted in front of him, watching him turn it this way and that, feeling the way the thing responded to him.

"James what is this thing? I have never seen one before." He cast a sideways glance at her before turning back to the road. "It is a Union LRV-A10." Ashe found her eyebrows colliding as she pondered the meaning of the name. "LRV?" James reply came fast. "Light Reconnaissance Vehicle." Ashe's head started to spin as James tried his best to explain, but after two hours of confusing lecture they gave up and Ashe fell asleep in the passenger seat of the LRV. James kept driving on through the night, his mind processing different questions as they came.

From the waters of the shore came a primal howl, binary that ripped the sky apart as beast lumbered onto the shore. Its mind was a seething storm of rage and rampancy, It had lost everything. Its life bond had died when defective unit 0013Z-A21 fired its weapon into her internals, where both she and her sister had been fragmented and destroyed. Then the Shroud terminator unit looked into its own mind, her thoughts reaching out to her soul engineer. 'Sarah S-11, I wish to feel your presents.' And the terminator stood there waiting, but a feeling of wrongness overcame her. 'Sarah? Are you there?' the terminator then felt a brief flare of pain where the sword point had entered her muscle cradle. The ugly realization of what must have happened dawned on her. The sword had severed Sarah from her mind; maybe it had even broken her crystal matrix.

Then the terminator unit christened Gallant Star howled her rage into the sky. She had lost everything to the mistake of her creators. Both her bond and her soul mate were missing, and she would make the worm of a failure pay.


End file.
